Wife Says Gun Held To Husband's Head Testifies In Trial Of Painter Unionists

February 16, 1985|by DICK COWEN, The Morning Call.

Mrs. Ruth Toth of Allentown, a gray-haired woman wearing a Mennonite prayer bonnet, testified in federal court yesterday that she saw a man named Michael Dolan holding a gun to her husband's head on a second floor back porch of the Lehigh Labor Temple in March 1978.

She said she heard Robert Delker, whowas there with Dolan, tell her husband Frank: "Yes, Toth, that's the way it's got to be. Out of the union by May 28 or your house will be blown up."

Mrs. Toth said she was standing in the parking lot at the back of the labor temple when she saw and heard this. "I was so stunned. We are people of peace."

This was one of a series of developments yesterday in the federal extortion trial of Delker, 42, of Bethlehem R.2, business agent for Painters Union Local 1269; Donald J. Parker, 42, of Bethlehem, a union member, and Richard Malgadey, 45, of Allentown, the union president.

They are charged with operating a reign of terror and violence in their control of the local from June 1976 until at least last fall. The local has about 130 members.

Frank Toth testified he was a member of the local since 1964 and became recording secretary in 1966. He was still recording secretary when Delker was elected business agent by five votes in 1976.

He said he and Delker had some differences in Delker's first years as business agent, the union's only full-time position. These pertained to charges against union members and also charges of contract violation against Anthony Scarcia of Upper Saucon Township.

He said Delker got "very angry" in 1977 when charges against Scarcia were unanimously thrown out by a joint contractor-painter reviewing board that included Toth and Malgadey.

Frank Toth said he was driving with his wife one night in March 1978 after a union meeting when he saw the lights on at the Labor Temple and stopped briefly to check whether his health and welfare payments were current.

He said Dolan, Malgadey, Delker, Bernie Gallagher and several others were on the second floor, having drinks after the meeting. He said Gallagher had a gun in a holster on his waist and that he told Gallagher there were to be no guns in the union hall.

Frank Toth said Dolan called him outside to the back porch, grabbed him, threw him against a wall and repeatedly jabbed a gun into his stomach. He quoted Dolan as saying: "Why can't you do what Bobby Delker tells you? Why are you a thorn in his side?"

Frank Toth said he called Delker outside to straighten this out and recited Dolan's threat that "they're going to get my house, my family and me." To this, he said Delker commented, "That's exactly how it's going to be." He said Dolan had the gun at his head for a time.

He said Malgadey came out onto the roof and seemed a bit surprised at what was happening. He said he asked Malgadey for help and got a half smile in reply. He said Delker went over and whispered to Malgadey and they both went back inside with Delker, giving a parting comment to Dolan: "You know what to do."

Dolan is an unindicted co-conspirator in this case.

Frank Toth said Dolan admonished him further to listen to Delker by resigning from the union and leaving town. Then, he was let go.

Frank Toth said he sold his home almost immediately, resigned from the local and moved his family to Florida for two years. He said he was in mortal fear for himself and his family.

Ruth Toth testified she had driven with her husband to the back of the union hall that night. She said she went off to visit a friend in the neighborhood while her husband went into the hall. The friend wasn't home.

She said she returned to the parking lot when she saw Dolan with the gun to her husband's head and Delker issuing threats. She said she ran to a pay phone and tried to call a relative on the Bethlehem Police Department. He wasn't in.

To a question by Delker's counsel, Atty. Wallace Worth of Allentown, she said she did not call Allentown police. "I was sostunned. I didn't know which way to go."

Worth asked: "Your husband didn't get shot by Dolan?"

Ruth Toth: "Thank God he didn't."

She said she phoned Delker from Florida in 1980 to see if things had changed. The family was homesick for the Lehigh Valley. She said Delker urged that they come back, that " 'I'll see that Frank will be working.' "

But by 1982 there were troubles again between Delker and her husband. She said she went to see Delker at the union office to ask why he was calling her husband a snake.

"He called me an atheist bastard and told me no women were allowed in that office," she testified.

She also touched upon the 1978 gun incident. She said Delker's comment was: " 'Are you saying I was the one who was holding the gun to Frank?' "

She said she told him he acknowledged and affirmed what Dolan had said then. In leaving, she gave him a quote from the Bible: "It's appointed unto man once to die. After that, the judgment."